


Coffee and Cigarettes

by LulzProfessor



Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-16 06:12:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7255720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulzProfessor/pseuds/LulzProfessor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Cafe customer and an employee take unusual interest in each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Noticed

In his days of working at the cafe, Matt had never seen a customer so interesting as the blonde haired boy. He stopped in occasionally, since the first time he did so two years ago, ordering the same thing every time. Matt didn't even have to ask when he arrived, he knew exactly what the boy would order and what he would say. He always came in at an unusually late hour, and Matt always figured it was to avoid any crowd. He couldn't help but watch the boy when he did stop in, just to catch a glimpse into his personal life. Although Matt was never good at reading people, the boy always looked distressed or some emotion similar to that.  
The boy always sat alone.  
Matt wanted to sit with him sometimes.

Mello came to the local coffee shop for one reason, and that was the man behind the counter that served him his coffee. He was never really interested in other people, but he always found that the man had a certain tone to his voice he didn't use with the other customers. Mello saw the man glance over at him when he sat down. He pretended not to notice, just to see what he would do. After all, he did only come to the shop when he felt alone.


	2. Connection

Sometime around May, the boy stopped coming to the Cafe. Every day, Matt would serve customer after customer, none of the foreign faces he saw ever being the one that he was interested in. He often reminded himself that it was ridiculous to miss a random stranger and that he should probably get more friends, but that didn't stop him. Matt couldn't help but wonder where the blonde haired boy was, and if he was okay. Every day dragged by to him, there was nothing interesting in the small shop anymore.  
‘I suppose’, he thought to himself while standing behind his uncomfortably cramped and shiny counter, ‘I could call this a crush.’  
‘I’m so immature.’  
**[Time skip to around June]**  
Matt fell asleep at the counter… Again. For the third time this week. Nobody had come in lately so it was painfully quiet, he had to stand there pretty much all day doing nothing since nothing needed cleaning or serving, and there was a chair right there next to him. Why not get paid to sleep?   
Matt slept in half hour increments, but never more than that since he was an extremely light sleeper and the shop was right next to a busy road. But when he slept, he slept WELL. Better than he did at his own house, in his bed, on his own time. (He was a major insomniac with a talent for being able to take a nap whenever and wherever possible, so a counter in an empty Cafe was very easy to sleep on).  
Something bumped the counter, and he woke slowly. He didn't want to open his eyes to look up, partially in fear of the slight chance of whatever it was being a robber or a serial killer, but also because he was actually enjoying the silence in his dreams. He stayed still for a few moments and felt someone tap his shoulder. Again, he stayed still. He heard someone sigh and finally looked up, picking up his head and stretching briefly before studying the person to see if he recognized them.  
“Mmmn… Eh? Who's ‘ere?” he rubbed his eyes and stood up straight. He did not expect what he saw, his still sleepy gaze meeting two familiar sapphire blue eyes and a head of neat blonde hair. The boy grinned at his slightly shocked expression, appearing to be amused at his reaction.   
“Finally awake?” Matt nodded slowly, yawning one last time and looking him in the eyes again. So the boy hadn’t died.  
“Sorry I fell asleep, it's been really slow around ‘ere for some reason.” Matt shrugged it off as the boy looked around, commenting quietly, “whoa, couldn't tell…”  
The boy stared straight at Matt with an almost unnatural determination in his eyes. He looked as if he was thinking for a moment.  
“Hey, I didn't come here for coffee this time.” Matt gave him a confused look, pointing to the various pastries on the counter.   
“...These? We sell food too, if that's what you mean.”   
He chuckled quietly. “I'm sure I'll try the food here eventually, but that's not what I'm here for either.” Matt was a little lost, had he caught on? Had the boy seen him?   
“What's your name? I never got around to asking, and you don't wear a name tag like the other normal employees here do. You should probably do that, by the way.”  
“Nah, I don't do what's not required. And just call me Matt. What's your name, or… Nickname, if you prefer?”  
The boy extended a hand to him, a friendly gesture that Matt saw as slightly sarcastic. He seemed like the sarcastic type.  
“Alright, Matt. Call me Mello. It’s nice to meet you. Or, officially meet you, since you did serve my coffee for two years straight.”   
“Good point. But why are you introducing yourself now?” Mello rested a hand on the counter, his friendly smile changing into a near-devilish smirk.   
“After some consideration, and two years of us watching each other (and yes, I noticed), I figured it would be good for us to stop being creepy and talk to each other.” Matt’s face turned a delightful shade of red, looking away in embarrassment.  
“Eh, sorry about that… But what about you watching me? I never noticed that.” So he HAD caught on.   
“You were interesting, still are. You interacted differently with each customer and it was fun to watch.” Mello placed a small scrap of paper on the counter, speaking quickly.  
“This is my number, don't even think about giving it to anyone else. Text soon, OK?” He then turned around, striding out the door and out of Matt's life before he could even say anything back. He wondered where he could get confidence like that.

This was definitely a pleasant surprise for him.


	3. Interest

The customary bland waiter outfit was immediately pulled off and replaced by a vest, a striped shirt, and some loose jeans. Yes, when Matt wasn't working, he was a completely different person. The sunglasses he always wore were traded for amber coloured goggles, which Matt found to be considerably better than the sunglasses. They hid his eyes much better.

Matt flopped onto his bed, finally home at the relatively late hour of 6 PM. He grabbed the folded up slip of paper and his small flip phone from his jacket pocket, wondering what all was on the paper. He never got the chance to properly look it over, so he didn't know. He felt a strange shiver of excitement run down him as he flipped open the phone to enter the number in. He unfolded the paper and looked it over. It was a phone number, neatly written in blue pen with some words below it. It said, “call me sometime!” and it was underlined once. Matt thought that it was cute and entered the number into his phone, intent on texting him but not having anything good or fun to say. He figured a simple greeting would do. So, “Hey” was all he sent.  
‘That's good enough, right? That can't scare him off.’

His phone went off about three minutes later. He was still holding it, but had drifted off thinking about what his text back would be, so the quiet ringtone shocked him a little. The small sound startled him out of his odd trance-like state and back into the real world, where he had an unread message waiting for him. He navigated to the message screen, then reading the small text on the pixelated screen and giving himself some time to wake up a little bit before responding. The text read, “Hey to you! Took you long enough to text me.” He figured that the message would have some sort of sarcasm or attitude, Mello did come off as that kind of person. He sat there for a minute, wondering if it was really a good idea to text someone he met earlier that day (and basically stalked for about two years) and decided that yes, it was because he had planned on doing this for a long time.

The text conversation went well, the two discussing what music they liked and what they did for fun. Matt was raised on video games (and spent a good amount of his income on them). Mello, surprisingly, was an artist and spent a lot of time on his work. Matt had offered to hang Mello’s art on the cafe walls, seeing that he may want to get more publicity. Of course, Matt would have to see the art first. He looked forward to it and so did Mello. Matt lay in bed that night, staring up at his ceiling and wondering what Mello was really like.

Before he knew it, Matt was on his way to Mello's studio apartment to see the art. Today was his day off hit since he fool the same route to work as he did to Mello's, he still felt as if he were going to work. He smiled as he drove past the cafe for once, he lived for days off. Pulling into the relatively small parking lot, Matt stepped out of the car and looked at the building before him. ‘405, number 405… This is building 400… He must be on the second floor then… Damn, these apartments are nicer than mine…”

Of course, there was no need for all the thought and hesitation because Matt found Mello's apartment 20 seconds into actually looking for it. Matt stood at the door, reaching out to knock but just standing there. He wondered if it was safe, if this was really just a trick and he was going to get kidnapped and murdered and never see the light of day again. He scoffed quietly at the idea, and knocked twice softly. The door swung open with a muffled creaking about 10 seconds later, Matt then standing face to face with a blood- no, paint-covered Mello. He wouldn't have thought that he was so openly messy about it. But, then again, Matt hadn't ever (willingly) painted before. In the background, he could see a canvas with black and red seemingly splayed out across it. 

“Hey! Wasn't expecting you today, you caught me at a good time though.”  
“Oh, yeah. This is my only day off for a while so I figured I might as well do this now!”  
Mello stepped aside and motioned for him to come inside. Matt stepped in, and so it began.

**Author's Note:**

> This was kind of a test run for my imagination... I shall continue if any interest is expressed. :D


End file.
